


legs for days

by Duck_Life



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Hugs, Love, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Spiders, Spoilers for Episode: e172 Strung Out (The Magnus Archives), Web Avatar Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25854169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Martin wanders off in the Web's Domain. When Jon finds him, he's... different.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 103





	legs for days

Jon isn’t sure how many times he relives The Tragedy of Francis, how many acts he narrates, but eventually the Eye must feel sated. He hears the tape recorder click off, and the cobwebs seem to clear from his mind. Francis is still up at stage, being dragged through the motions of their twisted fate. 

And Martin is nowhere to be seen. 

“Martin?” Jon calls, quiet at first as though the audience might hear him. But then he becomes frantic, and he raises his voice. “Martin? Martin!” He shouts for him, tears through the weaving labyrinth of a theater, but he can’t find Martin. 

They’re inside the Spider’s web. This is an emergency if there ever was one. Jon Looks, pouring himself into the role of Archivist and Searching, Seeing, trying to find Martin in this dark and dangerous place. 

But everywhere he Looks is shrouded in spiderwebs. Every direction he searches seems to tangle up and around itself, leaving him with no answers and no Martin. 

Eventually, Jon can’t bear to be inside the Spider’s lair anymore, can’t bear the feeling of the hairs on the back of his neck rising and the sticky cobwebs between his fingers and the echoing laughter of audiences all around him. He pushes open the double doors and stumbles into the sunlight, feeling his heart tear open at the prospect of leaving Martin behind. 

He’ll find him. He  _ will _ . Found him before, didn’t he? He always finds Martin. 

It’s just, he needed a break.

It’s just, maybe he needs a little help.

Maybe… 

Helen— the Distortion—  _ Helen _ … said she could always find anyone who had crossed her threshold. And Martin’s on that list. 

“Helen,” he says into the emptiness, sure she’s watching, sure she’s listening. “Helen, I’m… Please. I need your help. Please.”

For a long moment, he wonders if he was wrong, and she can’t hear him. Then he wonders if she hears him and is choosing to ignore his plea. He’d deserve it, after all. 

But then a pale yellow door appears in the side of the theater. Jon swallows his trepidation and knocks. 

“Jon!” Helen crows when she opens the door, her smile too wide for a human face. “I must say, I’m surprised. Decided you need friends after all?”

“I’m… I need…” His words trip over themselves, he loses them. “Martin is missing.” 

“Fascinating,” Helen says. “What does that have to do with me, then?”

Jon stares at her, eyes pleading. But of course she needs more than that. “Please,” Jon says. “He’s crossed your, your threshold. That means you can find him. Please,” he goes on, “I need him.”

“Well,” she says, “since you asked so nicely.” And she turns and leaves, letting her door swing shut behind her. Jon stares at it until it fades into the wall and vanishes right before his eyes. 

While he waits for Helen to come back, Jon tries to distract himself from worrying about Martin. He checks off Domains in his mind. He unlaces and relaces and reties his boots, trying to keep his hands from trembling as he clutches the eyelets and the aglets. 

Finally, he hears the squeaking of hinges. Jon’s head jerks up, watching as Helen reappears in her doorway. 

Martin isn’t with her. 

“Wh… where is he?” Jon says, peering past Helen as though Martin might be crouched behind her. 

“Well, I found him,” Helen says, clasping her hands in front of herself. “But he doesn’t want to see you.”

Jon has to stop himself from flinching. It’s too similar to the echoing taunts of Peter Lukas,  _ He doesn’t want to see you _ . For a second, he feels like he’s right back there in the fog, Forsaken and lost. Jon shakes his head. “You’re lying.” 

“Not lying,” Helen says. “But perhaps… phrasing it poorly? Yes. Specifically what Martin said was that he didn’t want  _ you _ to see  _ him _ .”

“What?” 

“That’s what he said,” Helen says. “He doesn’t want you to see him. Thinks you ought to go on without him.”

“I’m not,” Jon says immediately. “I won’t. Take me to him.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Th-then tell him…” Jon tugs on his hair, scrambling to think of anything that might convince Martin of the truth. The truth that burns so deeply within Jon’s bones and heart and soul that there’s nothing that could ever snuff it out— that Jon loves him, that there’s not a damn thing that could ever change that. “Tell him that whatever happened, we’ll deal with it together. Tell him I love him, and… and I want to see him. I always want to see him, no matter what.”

“Mm,” Helen says, looking largely disaffected. “See the thing is, Jonny-come-lately, you may be fine being a post-apocalyptic Google but I’m not terribly fond of being your post-apocalyptic Instant Messenger. So delivering your little message is going to cost you.” 

Before he can stop himself, Jon sighs and says, “What do you want?” 

“Want you to Know something for me,” Helen says, putting a hand on her chin in thought. “Michael. When he… when I took over. Did he understand?”

“I… what?” 

“The experience, for him,” she elaborates. “Was he just confused and in pain, and then nothing? Or did he know? Did he  _ know _ that it was me?” In the shadow of the Web’s theater, her eyes gleam bright. “Did he realize that the poor defenseless realtor he’d trapped had finally come back for revenge?” 

Jon shuts his eyes and Sees. 

Thinking about the Distortion often gives him a headache. All the lies and falsehoods and half-truths tend to pile up into a sort of eldritch ocular migraine. But this is important. This is for Martin. 

“Michael… yes. He knew,” Jon says, panting with exertion. “I, um. He didn’t realize that you would become… what you are now. But he knew that he’d made a mistake in leading Helen Richardson into his hallways.” 

Helen smiles. “Fabulous,” she says. “I’ll give Martin your regards.” 

  
  
  


Jon waits. And waits. The light never changes and he never really gets tired, so it’s hard to tell how long he’s been there. Old conversations with Martin cycle through his mind like reruns. After a while, the Eye starts nudging him back toward the door of the theater, but he stands his ground. He doesn’t need another Statement, not right now. 

He needs Martin. 

Finally, finally, another door appears in the wall in front of him. 

It’s… familiar. 

And that’s stupid, it’s silly, that something as inconsequential as the style and color of the door would set him off. But he can’t help but think of Bournemouth, of the day the world stopped feeling safe. 

The door stands there, unopened and unmoving. Waiting. 

In Jon’s mind, the words echo—  _ It is polite to knock. _

“No,” he mumbles aloud to himself, steeling himself. “No.” It’s just Helen’s door. She’s brought Martin back to him. It’s okay. He’ll just… it’s okay. He can knock on a door and have it be okay. 

So Jon knocks. 

The handle twists and the door swings open, inward into the hallways. Helen is nowhere to be seen, and the threshold is dark and obscured by shadow. It almost looks as if the door opened by itself, but Jon’s sure that can’t be true. 

“Martin?” he calls, voice hoarse with worry. “Martin, are you— ?”

“I’m here,” Martin’s voice comes from the darkness, and Jon nearly weeps with relief. 

“Oh thank God,” he says. “I thought… I thought— Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re here. You’re okay. You’re… you’re okay, aren’t you?” 

Martin makes a noise— some kind of stifled sound, a cough maybe. Or a sob. “Jon, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so s-sorry, I…”

“It’s okay,” Jon says, thinking he’s apologizing for wandering off. “It’s okay, you’re here now and that’s what matters. Just… just come here.” 

Martin doesn’t move. “You… you shouldn’t have to see,” Martin says finally. “It’s… Jon, I tried to get away. I tried  _ so hard _ .” Martin’s definitely crying now, and it makes Jon hurt to hear it. He can’t do anything— he can’t cross the threshold, or it’ll destroy either him or Helen. And God knows what it would do to Martin. 

“Whatever’s happened, whatever it is we’ll fix it,” Jon promises. “Please, Martin, I just want…” What?  _ I just want to hold you and know that you’re okay. I just want to look at you for as long as I can. I just want to check you all over and know for certain that you’re fine _ . 

“I tried to get away,” Martin explains, almost as if he hasn’t heard Jon. “I did, Jon, I tried s-so hard. But once the hooks were in me I c— I couldn’t—” He sobs aloud now, and the sound just about shatters Jon’s resolve. He has to whiteknuckle the doorframe to stop himself from moving forward. 

What is Martin saying, then? Hooks? So he was attacked in the Web’s domain, and the hooks… the puppet strings. The same wretched hooks that dug into poor Francis’s flesh got him as well, tearing into his skin and robbing control from him. 

But he’s here now. Probably bloody and battered, but here. Himself. Okay. “Martin, I… I’m here to help,” Jon says. “Pl-please let me help you. Let’s just… let’s go, come on.” He holds out a hand to Martin. 

For a long moment, nothing happens. Darkness and dust swirl in the space between them while Jon waits with his hand outstretched. 

A bony limb covered in coarse black hair reaches out to grasp Jon’s hand. 

Unthinkingly, Jon shouts and jumps back, panic overriding any other motivation in his mind. All he can think is  _ It’s back, the Spider’s found me and I can’t escape again _ . His heart hammers wildly in his chest and he sucks in each breath desperately as he tries to will himself back to a sense of stability. 

Over the rushing in his ears, he can hear Martin’s string of apologies. 

“... tried to get away but the web was wound so tight and I couldn’t run, I couldn’t escape, Jon, I  _ tried _ but they took me and they  _ changed _ me, it’s… I think it’s just like what happened with those poor folks from the Angie Santos statement, you remember, they got turned into… into  _ things _ like this and I knew it would disgust you and scare you and I’m so, so sorry, Jon, it’s… I’m just going to go, then, I’ll—”

“Martin,” Jon calls out, barely able to speak with the fear gripping his heart. “Martin, please, it’s…” What? He wants to say  _ It’s okay _ but nothing about this goddamn situation is “okay” in the slightest. “Let me look at you.”

“ _ No _ ,” Martin says, voice trembling. “It’s  _ awful _ , Jon… I wouldn’t…”

“Please,” Jon says again. He moves back to the doorway, peering into the gloom where he knows some horrible spider creature sits. Where he knows Martin is. “Please. Martin, let me see you.” 

And so, haltingly, Martin moves forward. He doesn’t step so much as scuttle, a mass of limbs pushing him forward toward the open door. Wiry black hairs cover the limbs that protrude from his abdomen. Thick cobwebs drape and entangle him, the white-gray contrasting with the black hairs. 

His face is still human— his chin, his cheeks, those freckles Jon has kissed too many times to count. But his eyes… there are eight of them, all shiny-black like marbles. They’re watching, waiting. 

“Oh, Martin,” Jon says, not even sure how he feels. Scared? Sad? Overjoyed that Martin’s still alive, even if he’s been through something unspeakably awful?

“I’m sorry,” Martin says, raising two spindly legs to cover his face. “I’m sorry, I  _ know _ I shouldn’t have wandered off and once they got me there wasn’t anything I could do… I can j-just go back with Helen, and I’ll be—”

“Please don’t go,” Jon says. The thing in front of him is hideous, frightening. But still Martin. Still lovely, always lovely, in a way unique to Martin. “Can… can I hold you?” 

Martin looks flabbergasted. “You…  _ want _ to?” 

_ I always want to _ , Jon thinks but doesn’t say. Instead he says, “Please.” 

So Martin moves forward, closer to the doorway separating the two of them. He stands in front of Jon, close enough for Jon to reach him. He does not move his limbs, does not want to make the first move. (Does not want to see Jon react like he did before when Martin tried to hold his hand.) 

Jon pulls him close and wraps his arms around Martin. Coarse hairs tickle his face and chin, and he can feel the  _ wrongness _ of those segmented spider legs extending from somewhere on Martin’s back. 

But… “I love you,” Jon says. “You’re my Martin, and I love you.” 

Tentatively, Martin wraps his too-many arms around Jon and squeezes back. “I love you, too.” 

“We’ll fix this,” Jon says. “Or else, or else we’ll figure out how to make it work. But I meant what I said to Helen— there’s nothing you could do or be or… or go through that would make me not want to be around you. You understand?” 

Martin sinks into Jon’s embrace. “Alright,” he says, unsteady on his unwieldy extra limbs, but bolstered by Jon’s faith and support. “I get it.” 

“Let’s go,” Jon says, and Martin finally steps over the threshold. 


End file.
